Fused Duality
by Vile Slanders
Summary: Things happen in life. One day, you and your friends are enjoying a bout of video games and junk food; the next day, you're all struggling to understand what happened. But understanding isn't the only struggle that we face in this life. Take a journey with a trio of friends, as they come to terms with an event that has separated them from everything they knew and understood.
1. Chapter I: Starting Anew

_._

 _For better, or for worse; in hope, denying despair; for release from former pressure; in habit, if not in heart. Why the hell do I even bother?_

 **(-)**

 **S**

 **(-) Fused Duality (-)**

 **S**

 **(-)**

 _A Pokemon Fanfic_

 **-v-**

By Vile M.F. Slanders

 **-v-**

 **Chapter I: Starting Anew**

 **...**

Getting started was always the most difficult part.

Action; tragedy; romance; intrigue; these were the scenes that appealed to him.

But starting off from scratch, trying to establish the crucial low-key environment; that sense of familiarity and relevance that lured audiences into a false sense of security, right before everything went to fantastical hell?

That was where the wall presented itself.

Colin absolutely detested starting new stories. Intended novels became one-shots in the span a single frustrating hour; months of research and concept development resulting in little more than a half baked plot synopsis; casts of vibrant, diverse, and damn near living characters winding up in "no-go limbo," awaiting the day that they could be adapted for integration into yet another total narrative failure.

Just thinking about how this story was bound to go nowhere gave Colin ample reason to lay down the pen and grieve.

How did they do it?

Those prolific authors, like Stephen King, Isaac Asimov, and Danielle Steel?

How did they pen a multitude of masterpieces so effortlessly?

 _-How did they even finish their stories?!_

"Your muse still on strike?" A jocular voice asked above Colin.

"...I can't do it." Colin mumbled from between the cradle of his hands.

 _If I could just get past the first scene…_

"You need to lighten up. Try writing a short story. Deliberately make it tacky. And don't have any grandiose expectations for it either. Just wing it, and enjoy yourself." The amused voice continued.

"...Is that how you wrote, _When Flies Smack Back?"_ Colin quipped.

"Hey man, don't hit below the belt. I did not know that story was going to blossom into a saucy romance when I started writing it." The voice started becoming sheepish in its enunciation.

"You put Fly-Girl in a spaghetti-strap bikini for her introduction! How did you not know that the story was going to turn pornographic down the non-existent plot road?" Colin cried out in ridicule, finally forsaking the crutch of his grief.

"Originally, she wasn't even a Fly-Girl. That was a revision I made in the earlier chapters after she and Fabian got it on in chapter three." Isaac chuckled, though his face was still hot with shame.

"I couldn't even make it past chapter three! That was the single most disturbing love scene I'd ever read!" Now Colin was turning red and laughing.

"You gotta admit though, it was pretty heartwarming. I wouldn't have been able to look past the antennae and labellum to see the beautiful and lonely woman at Fly-Girl's heart. Mad props for my boy, Fabian." Isaac snickered.

Colin fell back into the cradle of his arms, but breathless laughter accompanied his fall rather than grief this time.

"...Why don't you ever write a serious piece?" Colin guffawed, when he could finally speak again.

"Because my muse ditched me long ago. Ever since then, I've just made an effort to enjoy writing instead of getting all professional about it." Isaac answered without a hint of embarrassment, going as far as to shrug with an unconcerned air.

It was a sobering display for Colin. He knew that he still had his muse, but it was a wretchedly lazy, easily distractible muse. The mere concept of being completely devoid of his artistic drive was a devastating thought for Colin.

But to hear Isaac say it…

"I'm sorry man…" Colin murmured, the pity obvious in his voice. Isaac just shrugged again.

"Meh. It'll come back to me someday. Probably on my deathbed, but that's just life. Either way, I've already accepted that I'm never going to be a professional author. Starving doesn't agree with me, and if I relied on my writing talents to keep me fed…" Isaac stated good naturally.

"Don't say that, dude! Jeez, and here I thought I was a buzzkill!" Colin looked up at Isaac in shock.

"Psh! The truth is a bitter pill, but that doesn't mean I can't handle it. Anyways, there's something to be said about the creative liberty of being a hobby writer as opposed to a professional writer. I'll never have to censor my crap. You, on the other hand-"

"-I don't write monster-girl smut, so I don't have anything to worry about." Colin interjected.

"You need to try it at least once. You might find out that it's your thing." Isaac joshed.

"I'd sooner snort heroin." Colin shuddered.

"You don't know what you're missing. I promise you, despite all that you've heard: ignorance is _not_ bliss-"

"-Are you two discussing that abomination of narrative fiction again?" A nasally female voice piped up.

"It's called _When Flies Smack Back._ And no, we're discussing the possibility of a sequel. _When Flies Smack Back 2: Unplanned Parenthood."_ Isaac retorted.

"Please tell me that you're joking." Claire groaned as she took a seat next to Colin.

"Of course I'm joking. That story was a piece of crap. Better to courtesy flush the original concept than to squeeze out another colossal deuce." Isaac remarked.

"Gross!" Claire gagged.

"Too far, dude. _Way_ too far." Colin critiqued.

"Hey, I don't censor my shit. I'm a hobbyist, remember?" Isaac grinned.

"And yet you're still single, for some unfathomable reason." Claire snarked.

"Celibacy is a choice, Claire. I'm saving myself for the right woman." Isaac fluffed the collar of his polo, and straightened his poise out in a pompous display.

"...Is that what you tell the mirror?" Claire ribbed.

"You're gonna make me cry in a dark room alone if you keep this up." Isaac snorted.

"Boo-hoo. Big bad Isaac could use a lesson in humility." Claire refused to back down.

"Humility-? Claire, I'm the most humble guy I know!" Isaac struggled to maintain a straight face, but he couldn't pull off the facade.

"Okay, take the lovers quarrel elsewhere, guys. You're really making me feel uncomfortable." Colin lept into the exchange before Claire could get another word in.

"I wouldn't date Claire! Have you even seen the state of her bedroom? She's way too high maintenance for an easy-going guy like me!" Isaac made a shocked expression, and Claire matched it with a revolted face.

"Rephrase. If by _easy going_ , you meant: _absolutely piggish_ , then yes, you are correct. I am way too good for you." Claire retorted.

"...It's so good to be among friends." Colin sighed, kneading his brow.

…

"-But that's the thing I'm getting at! We can only see the universe in three dimensions! It's what we evolved to perceive! Say that we had a sensory organ capable of observing the universe in _four_ dimensions! What would a quantum vacuum fluctuation actually look like-?!" Isaac excitably ranted on about a lecture from his Elective Physics course; while Claire ridiculed him for entertaining fantasies instead of focusing on the point of the lecture.

"-First, who cares? Second, it's a quantum vacuum fluctuation. It would probably just look like an empty space that was heating up. That's definitely something they should make a sitcom about." Claire grumbled.

"But you're forgetting to factor in the Zeno Effect! How would the human perception affect the outcome of a quantum reaction!?" Isaac bantered, while Claire groaned.

"You're such a nerd…" Claire muttered in exasperation.

"There's twelve eyes between the three of us. You're one to talk about nerds, Miss Hydrodynamic Engineer." Isaac snorted.

"You know, for all the shit you two give each other-" Colin began, but Claire shut him up with a look.

"Zip it, Jerry Springer. Stay out of this unless you want to throw down too." Claire growled, while Isaac wolf-whistled in the background.

"Play nice, Claire. I'm the enemy; not Colin." Isaac chuckled.

Despite the humorous intentions of his observation, Isaac still brought Claire to a self-conscious silence with his latest request.

"...Sorry Colin." Claire murmured in an undertone, spreading her discomfort to Colin.

"It's-! I'm not-! You didn't-" Colin tried to dispel the awkwardness, but the clumsy attempt at tactfully phrasing his denial only emulsified the self-conscious ambience.

"...Okay, you two. Just chill. Nobody hurt anybodies' feelings. Except mine." Isaac groaned from the sideline.

"You don't have feelings, so you don't count." Claire snorted, walloping Isaac with her notebook.

"...So are we still on for tonight?" Isaac asked the group, after he'd laughed off Claire's assault.

"I'm gonna kick your ass right off the stage." Claire boasted.

"Definitely. It's always cathartic to see Isaac losing at something for a change." Colin grinned.

"Why do you all hate me?" Isaac snickered, as Claire rolled up her notebook for another wallop.

"Because you're _you_. Now let's go pick up some batteries at the corner store. My controller is nearly dead." Claire smirked, brandishing her notebook like a club.

"Dibs on Ganondorf's purple scheme!" Isaac proclaimed.

"Mewtwo!" Claire shouted out her predilection.

"I guess that leaves me with Fox McCloud and Samus then…" Colin shrugged with a contented smile.

"Then my second is Sheik." Claire looked at Isaac with a challenge in her eyes.

"My first pick is purple Ganondorf; my second pick is _pink_ Ganondorf." Isaac folded his arms with a cocky smirk.

"Big, ugly, and flamboyant. It's always the same with you…" Claire giggled.

"In-game projecting much?" Colin asked Isaac.

"Y'all haters can hate. But I'm a true Ganon-main." Isaac stoically posed with his overly-serious announcement.

"...Whatever. I just can't wait to see Claire flinging your vibrantly colored ass off the stage." Colin grinned.

…

"Four pounds of Pizza Rolls?"

"-Check."

"Six liters of Mountain Dew?"

"-Check."

"Five gallons of Tin Roof Sundae?"

"-Mint Chip actually. Sorry Claire.

" _Yuck."_

"That girly raspberry and eucalyptus ice-tea that Claire subsists off of?"

"-Check."

"Fresh batteries?"

"-You were there when we got them, Ganon-boy!"

"...Two boxes of tissues and a pail of burn ointment?"

"-I know you're gonna need'em, Isaac… But we don't have it."

"Mind if I cry into your couch cushions instead?"

"-Be my guest."

"Then we're ready to rumble. _Game on._ "

Friday nights were the best. A quiet place, good company, _Super Smash Bros,_ and the junkiest of junk food imaginable.

The perfect way to spend the first evening of the weekend.

This was almost worth suffering the weekdays for.

Colin sat back and munched on a pizza roll, as the pre-start screen cinema played out on the television. Claire and Isaac were already arguing over who was more canonically depicted; Ness or Kirby; giving Colin even more reason to sigh in contentment.

They were always going at it. Isaac, the witty loudmouth. Claire, the unyielding pragmatist. Yet somehow, all three of them enjoyed the conflict.

It was entertaining to mediate, spectate, and take part in; but the real joy of it all came down to the trivialization.

If only all of life's conflicts could be resolved as comically as this…

...Well…

...At least this was a vast improvement over what life had once been.

"Colin! Pick your character, man!" Isaac's voice snapped Colin out of it.

"Sorry! -Done." Colin nabbed Samus for the first bout, and the game began.

As was anticipated, Claire kicked both Colin and Isaac's asses. But that was just Claire. She may have been the silent type outside of familiar company, but she was a competitive soul at heart.

In chess or in Smash Bros, in Debate Class or in Grade Curves, Claire always showed her finest qualities under pressure. And Isaac-

"-Oh come on! How's a fricken' stick figure like Sheik able to launch a human semi-truck off-screen?!"

-Isaac was just Isaac. The least nerdy and simultaneously most nerdy member of their trio. Laid back and live-in-the-moment might have summed up Isaac's personality upon first introduction, but Isaac was every bit as fiery headed as Claire when the circumstances required it. That, and Isaac knew how to fight; courtesy of being raised by a retired marine.

In a way, Colin envied Isaac. Isaac didn't back down from fights, and his right hook had secured him the respect of the high school football team. Isaac was the anomaly that every high school had; the one nerd that nearly everybody liked.

Be it for his charisma, his intelligence, or his trophy position on the boxing team; just about anyone could find a reason to like Isaac.

Which was funny, because as it turned out: Isaac was even more of an introvert outside of school than Colin was.

"-Goddamnit, Colin! Cool it with the fucking grapples!"

"Your tears are my sustenance!" Colin laughed, as he flung Ganondorf on his back for the third time in five seconds.

...On top of that, Isaac was a terrible arcade fighter; so the scales more or less evened up.

"YES! FINALLY LANDED IT!" Isaac's cheer punctuated the _hhhuHAWWRG!_ Of Ganondorf's high powered wind up, and the half-amused, half frustrated laughter of Claire preceded Sheik's sudden flight to the horizon.

"...Killed by a one trick pony. I hate you, Isaac." Claire grumbled.

"Sorry, can't hear you over the sound of that awesome-!" Isaac began, letting Ganondorf's guttural wind up finish the statement for him.

"-Oh come on!"

Isaac's remote was in the air, as Samus dodged the punch, and grapple-flipped Ganondorf right off the stage border.

"Sorry, Isaac. That was for Claire." Colin chuckled, while Claire snickered from her beanie bag.

Friday nights were good times, all around.

…

"Okay, can we dust off a classic now?" Isaac moaned, as the binge break came to a close.

"Depends. What classic are we talking about?" Claire asked. Isaac raised an eyebrow, and pulled an old N64 cartridge out of his backpack.

" _Pokemon Stadium 2."_ Isaac breathed out the name in reverence. Claire groaned, while Colin whooped.

"That's a stat determined turn-based combat game, isn't it?" Claire moaned.

"They don't make Pokemon any other way." Isaac smiled with a nostalgic pride.

"Except for-"

"Those don't count, Colin! They weren't turned based combat, remember?!" Isaac interjected, prompting another round of snorts from Claire and Colin.

"Whatever. Throw it in. I'll just watch." Claire muttered, flipping open her notebook.

"Come on, Claire. I know you're a genwunner. Expand your horizons, try something new-"

"It isn't exactly new, Isaac. Stadium is gen-two. We're on gen-seven now." Colin corrected.

"Semantics! Listen girl, I know you only watched the anime, but the games are where the shit really happens-"

"Don't forget the TCG!" Colin interrupted.

"-Okay, TCG too, if you're into that- *cough* _Colin-_ *cough*, but the VG is where the real stories came from." Isaac rectified.

"...Boy gets super powered monster; boy uses super powered monster to capture more super powered monsters; boy gets ego-stroked into Superman by shonen derived cast; boy destroys super-evil shonen derived organization; boy becomes the best monster brainwasher that ever was; somehow love is a plot device. Every Pokemon game ever, quantified to its fundamental plot synopsis." Claire impatiently explicated.

"Best… Story… _Ever!"_ Isaac wiped an imaginary tear from his eye, while Colin applauded in the background.

"You dweebs can enjoy your game. I've got homework to do." Claire sighed as she curled up in her bean bag, and pulled a trigonometry textbook from her backpack.

" _-Homework?!_ On a Friday?!" Isaac's jaw dropped.

"Yeah!" Claire clarified, as she cracked open her textbook; while widening her eyes and raising her brow with a mocking smile.

"...Colin, you play first. I've gotta make sure that Claire's not coming down with a sickness or something." Isaac passed the controller to Colin, and forsook the sofa in favor of laying down on the carpet next to Claire.

"...Keep your distance if you know what's good for you." Claire warned Isaac, as a mischievous grin alighted upon the latter's face.

"I would never dream of interrupting your homework assignment… on a _Friday night."_ Isaac teased.

Colin tuned them both out, as he pulled up an old account on the login screen.

It was his and Isaac's account, started way back when Stadium 2 was new. Way back when the two of them had first met…

"-I'll hit you."

"I'm not doing anything!"

Selecting campaign mode, Colin picked Isaac's prized Pinsir from the roster, and returned to the Kanto region-

"...If that finger gets any closer-"

"What? There's a spot on the carpet I'm trying to get out. Colin, you really should vacuum this place more often-"

"I'm gonna hit you-"

Looking through the list of Gym Leaders, Colin picked Erika as his opponent, and prepared to square off against his pre pubescent crush-

"-Ow!"

"I told you, don't try to touch me!"

"Guys calm it down, wouldja?" Colin hissed over the smattering of nervous giggles rising from behind him.

"Erika, Colin? Sheesh. Janine is way cuter." Isaac turned his teasing attention onto Colin.

"And my waifu could beat both of your waifus up. Are you two really gonna 4-chan in Colin's living room?" An exasperated Claire decided to target them both.

"Claire, if you don't play into it, Isaac can't play it up." Colin didn't take his eyes off the screen, focused as he was on a Bellossom's elimination.

"Hey, keep those trade secrets to yourself!" Isaac retorted.

"It's okay. If I didn't play the game, I'd never score."

"Whoa, Claire! Slow down! That's getting dangerously close to sounding like innuendo!" Isaac interrupted.

"...Maybe it was intentional?" Claire stated in a coy voice.

"Jesus Christ… What was in that ice-tea, and where can I get me some?" Isaac nervously chortled in the background.

"...But seriously, something must've been off about those Pizza Rolls. I'm not feeling too good." Isaac stated in an undertone.

"...Yeah, me neither." Claire shifted uncomfortably on her squeaky bean bag.

"Dizzy?"

"Yep. Really dizzy…"

"Hey Colin? You feeling okay, man?"

"..."

"Colin?"

"..."

"...You awake, bro?"

"..."

"...I think I'm gonna puke-!"

"Claire-! Are you-?!"

"..."

"...Oh hell no…"

"..."

"Come on guys! Wake up! This ain't funny!"

"..."

"...Claire-? Colin…?"

"..."

"...Whatthefuckis-"

"..."

"..."


	2. Chapter II: Party Time

_._

 _Why? Because paradoxical titles are fun to think of, and I have to stick with my theme of putting cute faces on the covers of terrible stories. Also: who doesn't love turning semi-innocuous characters into monsters, and then psychologically torturing them for the sake of a philosophical curiosity?_

 **(-)**

 **S**

 **(-) Fused Duality (-)**

 **S**

 **(-)**

 _A Pokemon Fanfic_

 **-v-**

By Vile M.F. Slanders

 **-v-**

 **Chapter II: Party Time**

 **...**

 _It was a simple sport._

 _Eleven players versus eleven players. One ball. Two goal posts. A quarterback, a fullback, a halfback, receiver, tackle, guard, center, guard, tackle, tight end, receiver._

 _Opposite them: Safety, safety, cornerback, outside, end, tackle, middle, tackle, end, outside, cornerback._

 _Like a weird game of chess, where the pieces actually hit each other._

" _TIMEOUT!"_

 _...And took a hiatus from play every eight seconds or so._

 _From Isaac's perspective, football was the single most tedious game on earth._

 _Isaac sighed and surveyed his formation. The opposing team was huddled together, working out a new play while the hot sun baked every uniform on the field._

 _Black and purple. Why, oh why, did Isaac's school colors have to be black and purple?_

 _Isaac's team was roasting in their dark colors, while the opposing team's red and white jerseys deflected most of the vicious solar rays._

 _Who's stupid idea was it to stick hungover jocks in dark colors for a seasonal sport anyways?_

 _The timeout ended, and the opposing team fell back into formation. Isaac exchanged a glance with his left receiver, and waited for the center to snap the ball back to Isaac._

 _Any second now-_

" _FLAG! FALSE START! FIVE-YARD PENALTY! NUMBER 12, RIDGEWOOD JACKALS!"_

 _Isaac clenched his jaw in fury. His own left tackle had earned the team a five-yard penalty._

 _Which meant that they all got to suffer another thirty seconds of sweltering in the sun and hating their lives, while absolutely nothing productive was done._

 _..._

" _You lost the game." A disappointed voice growled._

" _It's just a fricken' game!" Isaac retorted, flinging down his helmet and jersey, as a limping bear of a man bore down on him._

" _Yeah, it's a game, and your team lost because their QB couldn't get his head in the game!" The man growled into Isaac's face, as flecks of tobacco reeking spittle spattered across Isaac's face._

" _Big whoop." Isaac snarled right back._

" _...Do I have to hit you, boy?"_

 _Isaac clamped his mouth shut, and vented his furious breaths out his nostrils._

 _This was bullshit. He never wanted to play this stupid sport. But-_

" _You'd make for an excellent QB if you'd just cut the fucking attitude out of the picture!" A pair of thick, calloused fingers jabbed into Isaac's temple, and his father spat a load of chaw off to one side._

" _I don't want to be QB." Isaac growled. His father snorted._

" _Really? Name one other kid on that piss poor excuse of a team that has half the brains you do. Go ahead, pick your replacement; pick the squat-jawed sonuvabitch that can do the job better than you."_

 _A roll of old dip, and a fresh glob of spit. This one aimed between Isaac's feet._

" _Your team is counting on you to make the plays. Your team is counting on you to keep them in line. Your team is counting on you-"_

" _If I wanted to be a fucking marine, I would've enlisted in the Corps right after boot-camp!" Isaac interrupted his father's lecture, and a furious eye fell on him._

" _...Don't you fucking inflate that ego. This is nothing compared to a battle arena. This isn't even remotely similar to a war zone-"_

" _It's still more bullshit than I want to put up with!"_

 _A fist connected with the side of Isaac's head, and the QB of the Ridgewood Jackals fell face first into his father's puddle of cold spit._

" _Watch your mouth, boy. Now get up and shake it out."_

 _Isaac's fist clenched, his fingers parting blades of grass and digging into hard packed soil. He'd had enough of this. He wasn't a kid anymore. He didn't have to put up with this…_

" _I said get up. If you wanna eat something other than bread and water tonight, then you'd better-"_

 _A fistful of dirt met his father's eyes, and an angry howl preceded Isaac's following strike._

 _Enough was enough. Isaac's father wanted his son to be a leader?_

 _Fine. Isaac would be a leader._

 _But that meant that his father no longer had a say in the life that Isaac had chosen to lead._

…

Isaac came to with his fists swinging; eyes wide and head jerking in every direction; blindly and violently seeking the source of his predicament. His heart was racing at a million miles an hour, and the tide of adrenaline surging throughout his body suggested that Isaac had just been attacked.

 _What's going on!? Is there something in my eyes?!_

Isaac raised his hands to his face, desperately seeking the edge of a blindfold; but instead, his fingers scraped across a misshapen device that enclosed his entire head.

 _What the fuck-?!_

Cold metal met his hands; a triangular and dense hunk of steel. Isaac could just barely feel his face beneath the mask, but he could still detect the bulky manacles on his limbs when his hands connected with his head.

 _Oh shit… Oh please don't tell me…_

This was some kind of horror movie bullshit. He'd woken up in a pitch black room, wearing a creepy metal bondage suit. Any second now, a television was going to turn on, and a freaky little doll was going to ask Isaac to play a game-

 _Get this thing off!_ Isaac panicked, running his hands across the cold slopes of the helmet, seeking some buckle, hinge, or clasp that would remove this plated thing from his head.

But there was nothing, except more cold and dense metal, and upon searching about the nape of his neck; Isaac only found more plates of steel.

 _It's like some iron maiden or… or something!_

No buckles, no hinges, no clasps. Just concrete like plates overlapping one another, forming a barrel shaped metal cage around him.

 _Okay… This is just a dream. Like that freaky dream you had tripping on acid. This is just a fucked up dream-_

Panic. It was seizing him, irregardless of his reassurances. Somehow, despite the oddity of it all, Isaac couldn't convince himself that this was a dream…

 _...Something is not right…_

...He shouldn't have been able to feel his fingers through the cage; but when Isaac touched the cage's breastplate, Isaac could feel his fingers against his chest.

 _Calm down… Calm down. You're alive. That's a start- Calm down!_

He wanted to panic. He wanted to cry. But Isaac had to keep his head on. He had to think clearly-

 _...Colin's. We were at Colin's house… Think! Think! You were harassing Claire! We we're all having a good time-_

The urge to cry overwhelmed Isaac, and a piteous moan escaped his mouth. He could feel his eyes warming and swelling in the effort of restraining his tears.

But even if he could hold back the rain…

...Isaac couldn't withstand the storm.

Whimpers sounded from his throat, as terror drove Isaac to all fours.

 _...We we're having a good time. Then everyone… everyone got sick! We all passed out! Something happened- something must have happened-!_

"COLIN! CLAIRE! WHERE ARE YOU!?"

…

He felt so warm.

Except for his toes. Those weren't quite so warm. As a matter of fact, his toes felt like ice.

Curling his toes in and scrunching himself up into a tight ball, Colin tried to doze back to sleep.

But the cold was spreading up his legs now, and the discomfort was bringing him that much closer to waking.

Colin groaned. He didn't want to wake up. He was having such a good dream...

 _Another fun Friday night with Claire and Isaac… Huh. First time I've ever had a waking-dream that didn't suck…_ Colin mused as his thought process became clearer.

God, it was so cold…

 _What happened to my sheets?_ Colin grumbled to himself, as he reached across his bed for want of his displaced linens.

His hand contacted something cold. Something moist. Something thick and rubbery...

...Some unnerving subconscious realization told Colon that whatever it was, it was _organic_.

Colin shot up in an instant, scattering pebbles in his ascent. He wasn't in his bed, but that failed to compute in light of the glaringly obvious and present anomaly.

Every hair on Colin's body was standing on end, as an electric chill pulsed from the base of his skull down to the lumbar of his spine.

 _WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!_

A mountain of mottled blue flesh stood before him like a wall, capped in a grey and heavy shell.

It was a massive animal, unlike any Colin had ever seen before, and after having mistaken its flipper for his sheets...

...The animal's huge, tear streaked head was pivoting on a long thick neck to face him.

…

She could barely see the pink thing through her blurred vision. Warm light filtered past the craggy arches of appeared to be a cavern entrance, offering the occupants of the cave with some visibility of their bearings; but Claire didn't care about where she was, or what the pink thing was…

Claire could only cry for what she had become.

Fat. Blue. Scaled and shelled. Flippers for limbs, and a pale underbelly.

She was some kind of turtle or lizard; it didn't matter…

Claire wasn't herself…

...And that was the only thing that mattered.

"...Don't touch me…" Claire sobbed to the pink blur, as more tears fell from her eyes.

Ugly. She was ugly.

...Claire wasn't even human.

"...Y-you can… t-talk?" The pink blur asked in a small and frightened voice.

Claire arched her neck with a painful wail, and began to whimper through her sobs.

"...It's not right… This doesn't make sense… What happened-? Why am I-?"

"WHAT THE HELL AM I?!" The pink blur screamed in terror, its shrill voice somehow familiar to Claire's ears.

An anxiety attack, similar to the one Claire that had already suffered, was reenacted by the pink blur for its sole spectator's growing horror.

It started with an examination of the hands. Then the feeling of the face. Then following the contours of the ears. Then tracing the incline of the neck.

By the time the pink blob's fingers had found found its collar bones, the watering green eyes were already filled with terror.

Somehow Claire knew; perhaps through empathy, perhaps through subliminal conviction, but Claire knew as soon as the pink thing looked down at its swollen round body; a retching gasp emanating from deep in its throat…

...Claire knew that it wasn't supposed to be a pink blob.

"...No…" The pink thing whimpered, right before the dry heaves hit.

Claire could feel her own empty gut clenching again, as a fresh wave of tears fell out of pity for herself and the pink thing.

"...I'm _Colin…_ I'm… not… not…"

"...We're not _this…_ " Claire finished for him, as recognition keeled her over with revulsion.

…

The round pink rabbit was Colin.

The fat blue plesiosaur was Claire.

That much had been established. The anxiety and disbelief had yet to subside, but they were both too overcome with horror and self pity to do anything more than stare off into the darkness of the cave.

"Lapras." Colin muttered. Claire looked over to him, confused and frightened by his nonsensical utterance.

"...You're Lapras, from the Pokemon games… I recognize you now…"

"...Stop talking. Stop talking right now, Colin-" A new fear, a ridiculous fear, had tightened Claire's throat.

Colin was losing his mind. He'd snapped. Claire was sure of it-

"Wigglytuff." Colin choked, pointing at himself.

"...I'm Wigglytuff." Colin nervously giggled; his disturbed enunciation conveying his sentiments of disbelief and total helplessness.

"Just shut up!" Claire screamed.

"We're not Pokemon! That's stupid! They don't exist! They're fake! They're just- just some… weirdo's idea! We're not Pokemon-!" Claire began to weep again.

"-We're _not_." Claire sobbed, as Colin's massive green eyes filled with tears again.

" _...Are we?"_

Colin couldn't answer her. He wanted to reach out to her; to comfort her; to comfort himself-

But he wanted to reach out to _Claire._ Not _Lapras_...

"...I don't… I dunno anything anymore…" Colin began to sob himself.

"...What happened to us?" Claire moaned.

There was no answer offered. Not from Colin; not from anything.

"It wasn't a dream…" Colin sniffled. Claire looked up from the hopeless arch her long neck had assumed, and met his swollen eyes.

"...It was Friday night. _Our_ Friday night. I was playing Pokemon Stadium. Erika's Gym Battle… You and- Oh God." Colin's reiteration came up short.

"- _Isaac"_ Colin choked.

" _Ohgawd."_ Claire retched upon hearing his name.

"He was with us! He was with us when we all got sick! Where is he?! Did he wind up here too?!" Colin's panic returned, and his massive green eyes darted around the cave, searching for some sign of Isaac.

"ISAAC?! ISAAC, ARE YOU HERE?!" Colin shouted into the cave at the top of his lungs.

The volume of his voice nearly deafened him with the cavern's echo. Claire's beaked face scrunched up in pain as the sound reverberated across the cave, shaking pebbles across the wet cavern floor.

"Not so loud!" Claire hissed in a whisper, her nervous eyes flicking from one darkened corner of the cave to the next.

"Shhh! Did you hear that?" Colin whispered, his tall floppy ears suddenly animate and alert.

"I can't hear anything except for ringing-!" Claire began on an angry note, but Colin urgently hushed her.

" _..."_

"...There it is again!" Colin whispered, his eyes growing wide and terrified.

"What?! What can you hear?!" Claire hissed in an undertone.

"Claire, hide! Fast!" Colin ran for a shadowy crack in the rocks, but stopped when he realized that Claire wasn't following him.

"Where!?" Claire began to panic, as she attempted to waddle forward on her flippers.

"Faster, Claire! It's coming!" Colin tried not to shout, but he was just as hysterical as Claire was.

"I can't move!" Angry tears filled Claire's eyes, as her clumsy limbs cut themselves on the abrasive rocks.

She was covering a few inches a second; moving no faster than a snail for all her desperate flailing.

"You have to hide! Move faster!" Colin ran behind Claire, and attempted to push her massive bulk forward with his pudgy frame.

But for all of Colin's grunting and shoving, Claire barely budged. She was far too big for him to move.

Claire could hear it now. An awful sound, like metal being dragged across rocks. Heavy footfalls; hammering out an uneven gallop; as if _something_ was charging up from the black depths of the cave.

It sounded like something big. It sounded like something _monstrous_.

-Something moving far faster than Claire.

"COLIN! COLIN WAS THAT YOU?!"

A familiar voice, both panicking and relieved, sounded from deeper in the cave.

Claire and Colin froze solid in their terrified retreat. They knew that voice…

...And they intuitively knew that something terrible was about to reveal itself.

 _It_ tried to leap over a ring of stalagmites, but in its haste, _It_ mistimed the jump.

Stalagmites shattered like glass beneath its steely-grey mass, and a half tonne of rocky debris scattered before _It_ like hail and mist.

 _It_ staggered through the wreckage, but never slowed, desperate as _It_ was to locate the origin of a familiar voice.

Surmounting the cave's entrance, the colossal beast rose to its hind legs, and shielded its dark blue eyes from the blinding glare of the sunlight.

It was only after its eyes had adjusted to the sudden transition in light, that _It_ realized what its arm actually _was_.

"...Oh, you gotta be shittin' me…" The aggron whimpered in a frail voice, when it beheld the makeup of its hand.

"Hey... Isaac-?" Colin choked on his friend's name, drawing the aggron's startled eyes over to him with a snap.

"It's me. Colin…" Colin shuddered on a fresh sob, as Isaac's eyes began to fill with frightened tears. Claire wailed above Colin, and the aggron turned to her with a horrified look on its face.

 _Isaac instantly knew who she was._

"...I think you're a little late to the party..." Colin retched.


	3. Chapter III: Don't Think About It

_._

 _What does it actually mean, to be human? Isn't it vain, to seek relevance in the explanation of our existence? Isn't it foolish, to ask questions when faced with inevitability? Is it not arrogant, to persist through failure and strive forward despite uncertainty?_

 _Is it vice then, that makes us human?_

 **(-)**

 **S**

 **(-) Fused Duality (-)**

 **S**

 **(-)**

 _A Pokemon Fanfic_

 **-v-**

By Vile M.F. Slanders

 **-v-**

 **Chapter III: Don't Think About It**

…

She'd always believed that nothing could be worse than that old life.

The screaming, the shouting, the confusion, the neglect, the hurt and the beatings…

That old life had been absolute hell, and that hell was what she had been born to.

It was all she'd ever known. It was all she'd ever expected.

 _It was what she had once believed to be normal._

...But then someone had shown her differently, and Claire's whole world was suddenly flipped upside down.

You'd think that kindness would've helped her to overcome the past. You'd think that empathy would've shown her the path to a happy life…

...But instead, that kindness left Claire feeling incomplete and dirty; like she was missing something; missing something crucial to other people; something that everyone else had; something that allowed them to trust other people…

Kindness had made Claire feel broken, because in the end, she couldn't accept or reciprocate that dangerous trust…

So Claire hurt the person who had dared to be kind to her, and in doing so, Claire was made to feel even worse than how she'd felt before being exposed to that kindness.

But that same kind person whom Claire had hurt had never left her, and over time, Claire was able to trust that person…

...And after the many, many, many lonely years of having hated herself, that person's trust had helped Claire to finally feel comfortable in her own skin.

And yet, here, in this place: all of that development had been for naught.

Now Claire was broken all over again; trapped inside of a skin that didn't feel right on her.

And that same person who had shown Claire the kindness required to forge trust…

...Now that person was someone else; someone that Claire didn't recognize...

…

Isaac sat alone, facing the cavern wall; his blue eyes boring holes through the uniformly weathered stone.

The utter silence deafened Colin; Claire had cried herself to sleep quite some time ago; Isaac hadn't spoken a word or moved from his position since before even that.

And Colin didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to do.

Claire sniffled in her sleep, prompting a startled reaction from Colin. But the lapras slept on, unwilling to wake; unwilling to face what she had become.

Unwilling to face what _they_ had become.

Colin's worried green eyes shifted from Claire to Isaac.

The aggron was as still as a statue; its hollow eyes were as inanimate as its figure.

Disconnected from the world. Seemingly unable to comprehend this dilemma.

He hadn't wept, which had unnerved Colin.

...Isaac had never wept.

Those brief tears upon the re-acquaintance with his friends were all that Isaac had shed.

Seclusion was his modus of grieving; just as it always had been with Isaac.

A sudden sigh filled the cave with a jarring dissonance, as Isaac shifted upon his iron bulk.

A steely tail dragged across the limestone floor, as the hunched aggron forsook his solitude, returning at last to the company of his friends.

"...You got a plan yet, Colin?" The aggron asked, his intonation sounded both weary and old.

 _A plan…?_

"What-?" Colin asked, his voice still tinged with fear.

"Something happened. Something happened, and we're here. This is _us,_ for the time being. We need to-" A shudder wracked the aggron's hulking frame, and the whimper of a frightened breath punctuated his sudden inability to speak.

"...We need to get a plan going. A plan of action. So what do we know?" Isaac inhaled deeply, calming his shattered nerves with a heavy breath.

"...What do you mean, what do we know?! We don't know anything! We don't know where we are! We don't even know _what_ we are-!" Colin began to panic. How could Isaac even think of planning right now?! Who was he trying to kid?!

Isaac was every bit as terrified as Colin and Claire was!

"Colin, keep it cool, man. Just keep it cool. We're not doing ourselves any favors by giving into panic-" Isaac choked on the hypocrisy.

Isaac wanted to panic; panic like it was a desperate need.

Isaac needed to panic, like he'd needed few other things in life…

...But he couldn't. Isaac couldn't allow himself to be that selfish.

"I know… I know what you're feeling right now. But we have to keep it together." Isaac found his calm, and tempered the anxiety with it. Colin could only mouth breathless nonsense at him; still struggling to adjust to the situation at hand.

"Claire-? I know that you can hear us. I know that you're not really asleep-" Isaac tried to rouse the lapras, but Claire squeezed her shut eyes even tighter, and tried to hide her grief stricken face from Isaac.

"Claire, we need you awake. Your _friends_ need you awake. Please… please don't ignore us…"

Reluctantly, the lapras opened her black eyes, as though the effort alone pained her. Shortly after Claire's eyes had met Isaac's, then it was that they began to brim with tears.

"Hey girl. Sleep well?" Isaac had to fight back his own tears, but his voice still intoned a familiar humor.

Yet despite Isaac's gentle intentions, Claire could only wail when she saw what he'd become.

He was just as ugly as she was. He was just as _wrong_ as she was…

"Come on, Claire… just let it out. Just let it all out-" Isaac swallowed hard, as he repressed the urge to hold her; to support her; to comfort her through this trial…

...But touching Claire would only make her cry all the harder. It always had in the past.

"It's okay. We're okay-" Isaac kept murmuring heartfelt nothings, but Colin had stomached enough.

"-We are _not_ okay!" Colin cried out, glaring angrily up at Isaac.

"Colin! Chill, man-!" Isaac began.

"NO! I CAN'T CHILL, _MAN!_ I CAN'T BE CHILL! THIS ISN'T REAL! THIS CAN'T BE REAL-!"

"COLIN!" Isaac had to yell over both Colin's shouts and Claire's renewed wails, but it wasn't Isaac's voice that silenced them both.

It was his _tail,_ as that agitated iron whip shattered the cavern floor with a thunderous crack and a brittle crepitation.

Tossing the alien limb a nervous glance, Isaac swallowed hard, and turned to both of his startled friends.

"...It's me guys. I know I don't- I know don't look like Isaac-" Isaac choked, as he attempted to breach the frightened silence.

"...But I'm still me. And I know who you guys are…"

Colin swallowed hard, and held his shaking hands together. Claire began to hiccup, as an anxiety attack overwhelmed her.

"Breathe. Just breathe, Claire. You're not going to suffocate. It's just the panic. Just let it happen-" Isaac addressed her softly, attempting to reassure Claire through another one of her episodes-

"I don't know what to do!" A madness seized Colin, as he clutched at his forehead; those green eyes filling with tears.

"Colin. Keep your head on. Claire needs you to stay calm. Please, just stay calm for a little longer. You'll get your turn to panic, I promise." Isaac almost sounded like he was laughing, and for one irrational moment, Colin actually believed that Isaac was laughing…

But that wasn't laughter. That was the sound of losing battle, as Isaac did everything he could to fight off his own hurt and anxiety.

And that spectacle alone silenced Colin, as a warm lump formed in his throat.

"...Alright. I'm cool-" Colin choked up on seeing Isaac's struggle. The aggron swelled with a shuddering intake of breath, and steeled his nerves with Colin's reassurance.

"Claire? You good yet?" Isaac asked, when her hiccups had mostly faded away.

"...This doesn't make sense…" Claire gasped out between her feeble breaths.

"I know. I know it doesn't make any sense. But we have to deal with it, just like we dealt with everything else, okay?" Isaac almost sounded as though he were pleading; it was a wretched intonation that Isaac despised himself for voicing.

But his words and the sentiments behind them reached out to Claire, giving her a purchase; something recognizable to hold onto.

"We're alive, and that's a start. We're still together, and that's something more. No one here is going to be alone, okay? We're all together, like we always have been. It's not _exactly_ what we had…" Isaac began to cough, as he struggled to repress the encroaching emotion.

"...But it's the best thing we've got, so let's work with that."

Claire steadied herself with a deep intake of breath, and fought off the wave of terror that threatened to drown this fledgling comfort.

It was too easy to give in to the helplessness; too easy to forfeit to the hurt.

Hard choices had brought Claire this far…

...This was just another very hard choice to make.

"Alright. Alright… I'm here. I'm with you guys…" Claire whimpered, forcing her voice out past the snare in her throat.

"Colin? You need a moment, bro?" Isaac asked the gaping wigglytuff, who started upon hearing his name.

"It's me, Colin. It's Isaac. I'm in here, dude. It's me." The aggron spread his heavy forearms apart in a brotherly display, and Colin began to tear up again.

But Colin didn't need to hide it any longer.

Colin could feel Isaac shake with a relieved chuckle, as the latter buried his face into Isaac's iron gut.

"It's cool, bro. We'll make it through this. You know we will." Isaac chortled as he held Colin in a firm embrace.

Colin wept against Isaac until his emotions were utterly spent. Calmed by the fatigue, unable to cry anymore, Colin pulled his numb self free of Isaac's arms.

"We're all good. Well, as good as we're gonna get right now, but we're all thinking clearly, right?" Isaac asked, as Colin wiped his button nose with a sniffle.

"Yeah… We're good." Claire loosened slightly with a watery chuckle. Colin clamped his lips shut and nodded, his head jerking wildly with the insincere gesture.

"...Hey Colin?" Isaac began, his voice noticeably soft.

"-What?" The wigglytuff forced himself to speak, drying his eyes with the fluffy backside of a mitt.

"You're pink." Isaac stated, his voice devoid of any humor.

Claire burst out laughing at Colin's stunned expression, but she soon choked on the drainage rolling down her throat. Yet her sudden laughter was infectious. Isaac was struggling to stay in deadpan, but the corners of his metal beak still lifted with a familiar expression.

And Isaac wasn't the only one fighting the chuckles back.

"Fuck you, Isaac." Colin retorted, his own round frame quivering with a gurgling laugh.

"Too soon?" Isaac asked, his voice returning to its standard good-natured drawl.

"Way too soon." Colin chortled, punching Isaac's iron knee.

Claire proceeded to cough up a lung, as she laughed at the both of them; fortifying the relief that they all needed.

…

He'd taken it far too well.

Colin shook his head in disbelief as he looked back on it all.

 _Fucking Isaac…_

"...Go figure he'd be the only one to keep a lid on it." Colin muttered to himself.

"Do you think he'll be okay?" Claire overheard Colin's ruminations, her voice quivering and nervous.

"Yeah, he'll be fine. Gives us all a heartwarming speech about not being alone, and then he just plods off into the unknown, completely alone. Classic Isaac." Colin snorted.

The confidence was a facade; a comforting farce maintained by prior experiences.

"...What do you think is out there?" Claire asked, looking over towards the cavern's mouth.

"If I had to guess? Nothing good." Colin swallowed. Claire began to fall into herself, withering with both her guilt and fear.

"He'll be fine! He's Isaac! A twelve-foot Isaac with a kiloton metal jacket, for crying out loud!" Colin ridiculed Claire's fear, and by proxy: Colin tried to ridicule his own fear, but the uncertainty persisted all the same.

"I'm sorry…" Claire apologized for the umpteenth-zillionth time.

"...It's not your fault. I didn't choose to be pink; you didn't choose to be aquatic. It's just something that we have to deal with." Colin muttered, flinging a pebble across the cave.

"...What if he doesn't find any water?" Claire asked.

"There's a lot of greenery out there, and we're on the high rise of an incline. There's another mountain peak opposite us, above the treeline. Plants need water to grow; caves need water to form; water runs downhill. There's definitely water out there, and a lot of it, judging from the environment." Colin sighed. Claire went silent for a moment, as she curled into herself with an as-of-yet unspoken fear.

"...And when Isaac finds that water, what next?" Claire could feel the helpless tears in her eyes again. Colin looked at Claire in concern; clearly not understanding the fear behind her question.

"How am I supposed to get to the water!? I can barely move on land!" Claire flopped a few inches forward on her flippers, demonstrating her inability to ambulate.

Colin swallowed hard.

Neither he nor Isaac had considered that…

"...We'll think of something. Isaac is strong. He could knock down some trees, make a sled to move you-"

"Don't be stupid! What would he fasten the sled with?! Rope?! Nails?! Prayers?! What?!" Claire began to panic again, but she recognized the signs. Calming herself with a series of timed breaths, Claire subdued the anxiety.

"We'll figure something out! Right now, we need a destination! We'll figure out how to get to that destination when we've established a route! Just don't-" Colin cut himself off as the anger in his voice rose.

Claire had regained control of herself; now he was the one about ready to panic.

"It's like a messed up game of ping-pong…" Colin choked, suppressing the unwanted emotions. Claire looked at him in confusion.

"...We're emotional powdered kegs, just waiting to blow each other up…" Colin shuddered.

"...You're scared too?" Claire swallowed.

Colin stopped himself from replying to the truism with a justifiable: _duh._

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm scared out of my fucking mind." Colin whimpered instead.

Another uncomfortable silence filled the cave, as both of its occupants wrestled with their fears.

"...I hope he comes back soon…" Claire whispered in a worried voice.

 _Isaac…_

"Yeah, I hope he does too." Colin sniffled, wiping his nose.

…

He finally felt like he could relax. For a moment, he allowed himself to just get caught up in the familiarity of the setting, reveling in both the birdsong and that evergreen scent.

He breathed deeply of the honeysuckle and sage seasoned air, relished the satisfying feeling of crisp moss and spongy soil parting beneath his feet.

It was a mountain. He was standing on a mountain; timbered and warm, the midday sun casting its golden hue through every gap and part in the bristled canopy overhead.

 _Almost familiar enough to be home…_ Isaac wistfully mused, as dry red pine needles crackled beneath his toes.

But even if this was home, there was no indication of a familiar territory to be seen across the land's expanse.

"You'd think that someone would've put a radio tower on that rock…" Isaac murmured to himself, as he scanned the opposite mountain range, and eyed the highest peak in that frost tipped sierra.

No red flashing lights. No red and white cabled pylons.

No indication of human activity to be seen anywhere across the expanse.

A pang of worry shook Isaac from his peaceful reprieve.

Claire was counting on him to find her a body of water, and the numerous fears that Isaac harbored for Claire's well-being drove him back to the pursuit of his quarry.

"Gotta be a body of water big enough for a lapras… That's a tall order for a steep mountain side; but the valley should have a river or a lake…"

If Isaac could find a snow-melt river on the mountainside, he could follow it down to the valley. All he needed was a trickle to start with, and then he could chase the watershed down to its largest tributary…

 _Just gotta find a creek or brook somewhere on this peak. Just need a little water to start off with. Just-_

Isaac's internalized self-reassurances were interrupted by the recognition of a familiar sound.

That dull roar in the distance…

 _That's a waterfall! Game on!_ Isaac fist pumped with glee, as he tore off into the treeline; hunting for that distant roar's point of origin.

…

Forget that he was an aggron. Forget that he was basically comprised of basalt and steel. Forget that he barely knew how to swim…

Isaac dove into a shallow bend, just below the waterfall's descent.

The water was ice cold and crystal clear; not like that lukewarm and murky brown water that was so commonplace at home.

It felt good to get his hide wet. The relief was practically intoxicating as the water broke up the grit and soil packed between his plated joints, freeing his limbs from the earth's muddy hold.

And the taste…

...Water had never tasted quite as good as this.

Soft. Clean. Slightly tinged with a crisp mineral salt.

Refreshing to gulp, pleasing to drink.

Rising from the shallows, his previously unheeded thirst quenched, Isaac wiped the lazy rivulets of water from his beak.

Those startling reminders that he was no longer human were already beginning to lose their novelty; but that trivialization may have been attributed to this success.

This river was thick and raging. Certainly deep and wide enough for a lapras…

...But far too whitewashed and torrential to risk incorporating Claire.

Somewhere further down the watershed, a section of the river had to have grown slack…

 _Just gotta follow the road. Couldn't be easier._ Isaac breathed out in relief, as he dragged himself free of the shallows, and plodded his way further down the incline.

…

A noise at the entrance of the cave startled both Colin and Claire, but the following grunt and jarring metal clang reassured them of Isaac's return.

"Good news." Isaac began with a beakish smile.

"There's a river, not too far down the southern side. Or maybe it's the western side? I dunno, either way, there's a big river over in that direction-" Isaac gestured to his left.

"-Problem is, it's mostly rapids. Like scary fast rapids. We're not putting Claire in the angrier bits, but the torrent slacks up between waterfalls-" Isaac began, but a teary eyed Claire interrupted him.

"-And how are we going to circumnavigate rapids and waterfalls?" Claire asked, her voice shaking.

Isaac locked up.

"...Shit." Isaac hissed to himself.

-He hadn't thought of that.

"What about a sled? We could try building one out of timbers and vegetation-" Colin began.

"Not gonna work in this terrain, Colin. Good idea though. Fuck!" Isaac grumbled as he struggled to think of a solution.

"...I guess this is it, then." Claire whimpered. Colin looked up at her shock.

"...I have an idea." Isaac muttered, working his mandibles uneasily.

It was a stupid idea. A _bad_ idea.

...But there was no way that Isaac could pull it off. Claire was bigger than he was, and besides, it was _Claire…_

"I can just stay here-! We can all stay here, can't we?" Claire pleaded, leaving Colin gaping helplessly between her and Isaac.

"Claire… You're not gonna like this…" Isaac began on a wary note, knowing full well that he was crossing a line with the proposal alone.

"...What?" Claire's voice shook, as her eyes widened with a fearful intuition.

"...I'm gonna have to carry you."

It was like breaking a vial of sodium over a tub of water.

First, there was only the lazy hiss of vapors; then, the sudden and explosive reaction.

"No… No, no, no, nononononononoNO!" Claire began to panic, flailing her flippers in terror, as she tried to backpedal away from Isaac.

"We have to get you to a body of water, Claire. We have to." Isaac spoke softly.

Isaac knew why Claire abhorred physical contact. He knew why she had a phobia of it.

But for Claire to have known Isaac for as long as she had…

...It hurt Isaac slightly, knowing that Claire still feared to be touched by him.

"Why don't we try the sled idea?! It shouldn't be too difficult to-" Colin began, his own voice shaking.

"-If you wanna try dragging a sled with a twenty-tonne Claire on it across a boulder field, then be my guest, Colin. It won't work. We have to carry her." Isaac cut Colin off with a frustrated resignation. Claire was sobbing hysterically, her monstrous form now more animated than it had ever been prior.

Claire was trying to flee Isaac…

...And for the first time in her life, she couldn't escape him.

"I'm not gonna hurt you, Claire. It's me. It's Isaac. I'd never hurt you-"

"STAY AWAY! GET AWAY FROM ME! HELP! HELLLLP!" Claire screamed as though she were under attack-

...Though as far as Claire's memories were concerned, she technically was.

Isaac felt sick with himself as he moved towards Claire, knowing full well how this must have felt like a repetition of the past to her…

Unable to move. Unable to escape. Trapped in a dark room. Exposed. Vulnerable. Naked.

 _Helpless…_

Isaac attempted to wedge his shoulder beneath her foremost flipper, but Claire no longer recognized him. A monster was forcing himself upon her. A monster that would take what he wanted, in violation of her pleas…

...A monster who would hurt Claire again, and lie to Claire about how much he loved her-

Claire bit down on Isaac's shoulder, her sharp jaws trembling against the steel plate of his clavicle.

 _Bleed, bleed, bleed, bleed, bleed-_

But Isaac's armor was too hard; too thick; too dense, and far too strong to break beneath her beak.

 _Please bleed… please just go away..._

A piteous moan sounded from Claire's throat, when the monster pushed himself beneath her, and lifted her at the midsection to ride upon his hips…

"Easy, Claire. Just take it easy." Isaac was almost crying as he hoisted Claire over his shoulders and onto the center of his back.

He knew that this was going to be hard…

...But Isaac never thought that he'd ever hate himself as much as this for trying to help Claire…

 _The monster was pushing against her; he was trying to take something; trying to take something from Claire that she never wanted to give-_

"Colin, take the lead. I've got this." Isaac sounded nauseous, as Claire squirmed above him, trying to cleave her most sensitive region from its contact with his lumbar.

Colin shuddered, and wiped the tears from his eyes.

Why couldn't they have just tried the sled? Even if it didn't work, Claire wouldn't have to be-

 _Stop it._ Colin told himself, as he placed a shaking pink foot ahead of its unstable twin.

 _Building a sled would take time and other resources we don't have. If the sled failed, then we'd still have to carry her. And there's no way that Claire could live in this cave. Isaac knows what he's doing…_ Colin swallowed hard when he realized how Isaac had managed to maintained his calm.

Isaac was doing what had to be done, and Isaac had been doing what needed to be done from the very beginning; because Isaac knew what could happen to him and his friends if he didn't.

Isaac had never wept, because Isaac knew that someone needed to keep their head on.

It had only just dawned on Colin.

 _If we don't act quickly, when we need to act quickly…_ Colin shuddered, and slipped on the slimy rim of the cave mouth.

"Keep moving, Colin. Take a left ASAP. Claire-! Just calm down!" Isaac grunted with the effort of lifting the flailing lapras past the lip of the cave. Colin bit down on his lower lip and complied.

 _-If we don't adapt, when we need to adapt..._

 _...Then someone could die._


	4. Chapter IV: Unsweetened Dreams

_._

 _YOLO!_

 **(-)**

 **S**

 **(-) Fused Duality (-)**

 **S**

 **(-)**

 _A Pokemon Fanfic_

 **-v-**

By Vile M.F. Slanders

 **-v-**

 **Chapter IV: Unsweetened Dreams**

…

It had been a game.

Their game.

A carryover from their childhood days, a private gimmick that they had entertained throughout their entire friendship.

A single finger. The invasion of a personal space.

An ongoing effort to defeat a phobia.

The game had begun poorly, almost destroying the friendship in its early stage.

Just a boy testing the limits, and a girl firmly establishing those limits.

But as the boy and the girl grew, the game took on a new meaning.

The rules had never changed. The boy would attempt to cross the limit, and the girl would punish him for it.

But the sport itself had become something different.

Whereas the early game had invoked tears and guilt, the new game had wrought laughter and sheepish sentiments.

And yet, this seemingly childish exchange carried a weighty meaning between the boy and the girl.

For the boy, his incessant advances were a message. A patient message that told of a budding hope.

For the girl, her repetitive punishments were a message. A wary message that told of a growing trust.

It was more than just a game. It was more than just a teasing exchange.

It was their message to one another.

…

Claire sniffled from her perch on Isaac's back.

The shock had worn off, and the memories had receded.

It was Isaac beneath her. Not her father.

Claire still didn't want the contact, but she knew why Isaac had broken the rules.

He was trying to protect her.

"You holding up back there, Claire?" Isaac asked softly.

"...Not really." Claire feebly replied.

Too much trauma for one day. Far too much trauma for Claire to cope with.

"Hold on. We're almost to the long slack. I'll put you in the water if you promise to let me carry you down the next waterfall." Isaac's voice shook, and Claire felt a stab of guilt.

Claire knew that this hurt Isaac. She knew that this was trial for him as well.

And as much as Claire wanted to be comfortable with Isaac this close to her…

...Old experiences poisoned such doting contact with a loathsome fear.

"I'm sorry…" Claire whispered to Isaac.

"...It's alright." Isaac whispered back.

No. It wasn't alright.

Claire felt broken. Broken in a way that prevented people from getting close to her.

She had allowed Colin to get closer than most, because Colin had always respected Claire's space.

Isaac, on the other hand…

Isaac had always pushed her boundaries, and he had only ever exceeded them once before.

This was Isaac's second trespass. And just like the first trespass, this second trespass had been executed without malice.

The first trespass had been executed out of ignorance.

This second trespass had been executed out of compassion.

And yet, Claire couldn't repress or rationalize away the fear and sickness that his contact invoked.

Claire was made to feel broken, because she didn't know what it felt like to be fixed.

"You okay Colin?" Isaac called out to the silent wigglytuff.

"I guess. You?" Colin replied in a quiet voice.

"Well, I've definitely been better. But I've also been a whole lot worse." Isaac shrugged beneath Claire, prompting a shudder from his passenger.

"Sorry." Isaac murmured in a private undertone. Claire could only swallow in response.

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Colin chortled. Isaac chuckled knowingly with him.

"Beats getting your ass kicked in a locker room, right?" Isaac quipped.

"Better than going home with a smelly backpack that got showered on in a urinal." Colin conceded.

"If I ever find the sick fuck that did that to you-" Isaac began on a vehement note, but his bravado was interrupted by a slick tree root and a dusty incline, as Isaac tripped and fell face first down the coarse mountain gradient.

"Isaac!" Colin hastily slid down the gravelly escarpment after Isaac and Claire's descent. Yet immediately after he'd skidded to a stop, the aggron was back on his feet, and readjusting his shaken passenger's position on his back.

"You okay Claire?" Isaac asked, his voice winded from the fall.

Claire took a moment to gather her startled senses, before tightly clamping her beak shut and nervously nodding her head.

"Are _you_ okay?!" Colin shot a worried glance up at Isaac, as the wigglytuff skidded through the gravel next to him.

"...Knocked the wind out of myself, and jumped my heart rate up a couple million beats per minute; but otherwise, I'm fine." Isaac gasped, shaking his jittery limbs out one at a time.

"You just got knocked down and body slammed by a lapras! How are you still _alive-_?!" Colin began, but a sudden realization silenced him.

 _Aggron, duh!_

"Eighth highest defense stat in the game, bra! _Plus_ a four times resistance to normal type attacks!" Isaac was trying not to laugh when he fist pumped, but Colin cracked up almost instantly, prematurely aborting Isaac's semi-serious demeanor.

"You're such a dork!" Colin snickered, while a confused Claire shifted her worried glance between the two of them.

"...An inside joke?" Claire asked, her voice still frail.

"Boring stats and mechanics from a turn-based combat game. Probably not totally applicable here, but apparently still somewhat representative." Isaac snorted.

"...You're both dweebs." Claire gurgled, prompting another bout of laughter from both Colin and Isaac.

…

"Alright Claire. Take it slow and stick to the shallows. I know you don't want to be carried, but I'd rather you not get battered to death by the rapids." Isaac lowered himself into the river, and forded Claire out into deeper water.

Claire said nothing as she allowed herself to be ferried from Isaac's shoulders and into open water by the river's flow.

The trip had not been gentle. Isaac's plates were not only hard, cold, and uncomfortably shaped; but their buckling motions had pinched Claire's underside, drawing blood in more than one location.

The cold water stung Claire's many broken contusions, and the shallow lacerations on her flippers briefly clouded with a ruddy hue, as the clots gave way to the icy exposure.

Sore, stiff, and burning about her minor wounds, Claire experimented with the dexterity of her flippers; trying to determine the modus operandi intrinsic to this alien body.

Good thing she'd studied marine biology in preparation for her Hydrodynamics major…

Isaac clambered out of the river, water dripping from between the shingles of his mail. Shaking his body like a dog failed to dislodge the water trickling from underneath his armor, but Isaac's steel plates seemed hydrophobic; preventing the water from clinging to his frame for very long.

"You tired?" Colin asked Isaac, as the former dipped his furry toes into the river's shallows.

"Not really." Isaac murmured, watching Claire flex her flippers and body in different motions, as she established the basic dos and don'ts of aquatic ambulation.

"We must've covered at least eight miles across rough terrain. Are you sure you're not tired?" Colin asked, detecting a bluff.

"Sleepy maybe. Exhausted? Not even close." Isaac yawned, falling on his side with a dull thud.

Colin shook his head. None of them really knew what these alien forms were capable of yet, but Isaac's newfound physical endurance seemed completely unreal.

"Apparently I can scream _really_ loud, and you can haul a mountain around without tiring; so what exactly can Claire do?" Colin asked, pulling his toes from the water and turning about to face Isaac.

"Hey Claire." Isaac called out, interrupting Claire's swim rehearsal.

"What?"

"Use Ice Beam." Isaac grunted.

"-What?!" Claire cried out in alarm.

"Guess not." Isaac chuckled, closing his eyes for a moment.

"...Are we gonna keep pushing on? Or are we gonna camp out here for the night?" Colin asked Isaac, stirring the aggron from his nap.

"...Umm…"

Colin wasn't the only one waiting for Isaac's answer. Claire was eying him expectantly too.

"...How's everyone feeling?" Isaac asked, feeling a tad self-conscious.

"Cold. Dirty. Exhausted. Hungry." Colin reported.

"Frazzled. Absolutely frazzled. Otherwise I'm okay." Claire swallowed.

"I may not be hungry or very cold, but I am seriously fighting to keep my eyes open right now. I think we should call it a night. What do you think a wigglytuff eats, Colin?" Isaac sighed.

"I dunno… berries maybe?" Colin chanced a canon-educated guess.

"Judging from your buck teeth and weak jaw structure, I'd say fruits, soft vegetation, and maybe some roots and tubers. Might want to avoid the berries though. We don't know how much fructose a wigglytuff can metabolize." Claire piped up from the water. Both Colin and Isaac's heads swung over to eye her in shock.

"...What-?" Claire asked nervously.

"...And you call us dweebs, Miss Cryptozoologist?" Isaac chortled from his lazy recline.

"What!?" Claire cried out in indignation.

"Well, she did discover the Loch Ness monster-!" Colin began with a titter, but Isaac silenced him with a thumping tail and a dire look.

 _-Don't push it. She's not taking this as well as we are._ Isaac warned Colin with that look.

...And a glance at the withering Claire was all it took to confirm Isaac's concerns.

"I- I didn't mean-" Colin began, but Isaac cut him off with a huff.

"We know, Colin. Claire? Don't think about it, alright?" Isaac called out to his somber friend with a soft voice.

"...How can I not think about it?" Claire muttered from the river, glaring down at her reflection in the still shallows.

She was so ugly… She was so _wrong-_

"Try looking at the fat metal triceratops on the shore." Isaac grumbled. Claire's hurt visage shot up from surveying her reflection, new tears glistening at the corners of her black eyes.

"We're all in the same vote. Quit being so self-judgemental. Otherwise, we'll all start dwelling on this miserable shit." Isaac murmured, lifting a clawed gauntlet to weary eye level, and flexing the iron digits of his talon.

Colin's ears drooped with his own sullen expression, as his pink balloon of a body shrunk with a depressed slouch.

Claire swallowed hard.

Isaac was right. Self pity reflected poorly on all of them, and besides…

...None of their sufferings were exclusive. Every one of them shared the same pain.

It was bittersweet, perhaps even slightly masochistic, but Claire was glad that she wasn't hurting alone.

"...I should… I should probably go find something to eat…" Colin murmured, his good humor now thoroughly defeated.

"We passed a slow creak feeding into the river about half a mile upstream. I could smell cattails somewhere around that creek. Dig up their roots and scrape out the fluff in their stocks. They're a bit starchy raw, but they're good eats." Isaac advised, but Colin hesitated.

"...Could you guys maybe… accompany me-?" Colin asked in a small voice.

"Claire-? You think you could manage by yourself for a bit?" Isaac asked softly, warily glancing at the rapids further upstream.

"...No… But if I have to..." Claire swallowed.

"We won't be gone long, I promise. Just gonna harvest an armload of cattails and get back here ASAP. Colin can finish his prep work in camp." Isaac attempted to reassure Claire, and the worried lapras nodded her head with a stiff jerk of her neck.

"Colin, let's make this quick." Isaac groaned as he lifted himself off the bank, and gestured to the wigglytuff to take the lead.

…

"Watercress, fiddlehead, cattail, and brooklime. It's a fricken' smorgasbord of waterside greens." Isaac grunted, as he sampled a fern sprout.

The acrid taste prompted him to quickly spit it out.

"Guess I'm not a vegetarian." Isaac hacked, clacking his scale-mailed tongue off the iron roof of his mouth.

Colin warily nibbled on a fiddlehead, his ears and eyes perking up as he did.

"It kinda tastes like earwax at first, but the aftertaste reminds me of parsley." Colin consumed the remainder of the fern, before stuffing a face full of watercress into his mouth with a gusto.

"Tha's gud!" Colin euphorically mumbled through the mouthful of minty watercress.

"Come on, get a bundle wrapped up. We gotta get back to Claire." Isaac pulled up another clod of cattail roots from the soil, and dumped the stalks on a prepared strip of cattail husk.

Colin swallowed his mouthful of greens, and rushed over to bind the pile of cattails into a bale.

Isaac couldn't tie the cattail strips with his iron claws. His opposable thumbs didn't have anywhere enough length or dexterity to manage such a delicate procedure.

"Can't eat greens, can't tie knots, can't even keep my eyes open when it starts getting dark…" Isaac grumbled with a yawn.

"I'm beginning to think that you're cold-blooded, dude." Colin chuckled, eying his hulking friend with a concerned look.

Isaac looked like he could pass out at any moment.

"It's possible. But how could a cold-blooded animal survive in a subterranean environment? There's not a lot of heat or sun underground, ya know?" Isaac closed his eyes for a moment and dozed.

It wasn't until Colin tickled Isaac's metal snout with a cattail that Isaac woke up.

"...Like I was saying, until your snoring interrupted me-" Colin grinned as Isaac shook himself into wakefulness.

"-There's a lot of pressure below ground. Enough pressure to bring water to a boiling temperature if the circumstances are right." Colin walloped Isaac's nose horn with the cattail, causing the fluffy head to burst all over Isaac's sleepy face.

"And if an organism has a conductive dermal layer, say one that's made out of metal... well, it would be pretty easy for that organism to collect heat from all the subterranean thermal sources." Colin chuckled as Isaac choked on the cattail's fluffy debris.

"I'm awake! No need to smother me!" Isaac coughed through the fluff, bending low to shoulder the bales that Colin had finished tying together.

"Being cold-blooded would also explain your insane tolerance for physical labor. You're not burning up calories to stay warm like me, so all that saved energy can be spent on strenuous activities." Colin continued. Though his thought process was notably sluggish, Isaac forced himself to think as he trundled off with Claire's dinner under either arm.

"Aren't lizards and snakes like super efficient? I remember hearing that crocodiles only need to eat like fifty meals a year… was that just an urban legend, or-?"

"Nope. That's fact. Crocs can even survive on a single meal a year if they have to. I don't think it's healthy, and I would imagine that they practically hibernate throughout most of the starvation period… but who's to say that aggrons can't do the same?" Colin picked up his bundled meal, and set off after Isaac as the aggron plodded his way towards the river.

"I can definitely see the advantages of being a cold-blooded animal in a subterranean environment now. But that in turn raises the question: what do aggrons eat? Meat? And if so, where do they get it?" Isaac asked. Colin shrugged.

"Maybe a little meat, but… you know that old saying: _You are what you eat?"_ Colin voiced his suspicion with a smile.

"...Don't tell me that the pokedex entry was right…" Isaac groaned.

"Sorry dude, but it looks like you subsist mostly off of rocks and metal. Probably iron ore, judging from your makeup and its abundance in universal geology." Colin tried not to laugh.

" _Metal and rock._ Now that's what I call hardcore dining." Isaac sighed with resignation.

Colin snorted and shook his head with a rueful smile.

 _Poor Isaac..._

"...You're sure that Claire can eat this stuff?" Isaac asked, shifting the bale of watercress in his arms.

"I'm not positive, but we took the same AP Bio class. She's got tiny needle teeth upfront, and flat shingled molars in the back of her jaw. That combined with the scraping bill suggests that lapras are herbivores, possibly omnivorous. I'd imagine that she's supposed to eat kelp and seagrass, but… well, this is a freshwater river." Colin finished lamely.

"Cold-blooded too?" Isaac asked.

"Definitely. But she's probably got some insanely low body temperature threshold. Would have to, if lapras are truly an oceanic species." Colin answered before nibbled on another fiddlehead.

"Great. Let's pick up the pace a bit, so I can go have a coma…" Isaac yawned, nearly dropping his payload of veggies with the rigors of such an exhausting reflex.

Colin couldn't help but laugh.

Somehow, trying to figure all of this out was proving to be a cathartic mental exercise.

…

Isaac passed out the instant they returned to the camp. He didn't even lie down. As soon as Claire's dinner was delivered to the waterside, Isaac started snoring standing up.

"You wanna try eating some of this, Claire? The sooner we figure out your diet, the better we'll be able to plan our next move." Colin's humor had sobered up considerably upon returning to their camp. Claire's misery was infectious, and unlike the jovial foraging trip he'd shared with Isaac…

...Claire's company was something that brought all of those uncomfortable thoughts to the surface.

"I'm not hungry." Claire muttered, eying the passed out Isaac somewhat accusingly.

"He can't take the cold and dark, Claire. Not when he's been hauling you down a mountainside." Colin couldn't keep the reproach out of his voice. Isaac needed some sleep, and Claire was going to get snarky about it? After everything Isaac had done for her?

"Don't blame me! I didn't ask for this!" Claire detected Colin's frustration, and she replied to it with her own anger, as boiling tears welled from corners of her eyes.

"None of us did! For crying out loud! What makes you think that any of us want to be pokemon!?" The volume of Colin's voice was rising, yet Isaac snoozed on and on; oblivious to the conflict around him.

"Really?! You mean to tell me that Isaac and you hate this as much as I do?!" Claire slapped a flipper against the water's surface, splashing Colin with an airborne wave.

"What do you mean?! Do you actually think that I _want_ to be a wigglytuff?!" Colin cried out with indignation.

"Well you two seem to be handling it just fine!" Claire screamed at Colin, shaking from her blue fore-horn to her pale fin-tips.

Colin couldn't believe this. He knew that Claire had self-esteem issues, but this was just _petty-_

"We're doing what we have to do to _survive_ , Claire! And you're not making it any easier!" Colin's voice reverberated through the forest; echoing off the mountainsides. Roused by the explosion of noise, Isaac shook himself awake, and blinked his bleary eyes in confusion.

"Sumthin goin' on?" Isaac yawned.

"...No. Nothing." A panting Colin leveled his voice for addressing Isaac, both in volume and in expression.

Claire was bawling her eyes out, doing everything she could to keep her sobs silent.

"Well, if everythin is- ohfuckit…" Isaac yawned again, and fell asleep halfway through the reflex. A moment of silence passed between Colin and Claire, as they both struggled to master their emotions.

"...I know you're scared, Claire. Believe me, I know." Colin only spoke up again after Isaac's snoring had resumed.

"...But we can't just give up and mope. We have to keep our heads on. Otherwise…" Colin shuddered when he entertained that bleak possibility. A pitiful sound escaped Claire's restraint, as the ashamed lapras proceeded to choke on her grief.

"...I don't want to lose my friends, Claire. And neither does Isaac. So please… please just…" Colin struggled to tactfully voice his desire of Claire.

 _-Don't be you._

"...You gotta let the past go, otherwise the future is going to get even worse." Colin swallowed.

Claire was drowning in her sobs now. A lonely girl who knew only of hurt had exposed herself to Colin.

He'd seen this before, though Claire had rarely shown it to him.

Yet despite his inexperience with responding to this type of situation, Colin still knew what to do.

Isaac had taught him that much.

"We're here for you, and we always will be. Don't forget that, Claire. Don't let anything come before that." Colin whispered to his friend, and a sobbing Claire nodded her blubbering head.

"Stay close to the shore, okay? We don't want you drifting off into the rapids. Get some sleep, 'cause we're all gonna need the rest-" Another rueful chuckle and sniffle found its way out of Colin's throat.

Sleep. Maybe when they woke up, they'd all be in their beds at home?

 _Don't be stupid, Colin…_ Colin berated himself for the wistful thought. Shuddering on the intake of breath before a sigh, Colin looked up from his feet to meet Claire's swollen black eyes.

"...We've probably got a long journey ahead of us, so be ready for anything." Colin murmured softly. Claire's sobs had died down to sniffles, and the speechless lapras could only nod her head in concession.

Heading off to finish preparing his evening meal, Colin forced himself to eat, even if his appetite had been thoroughly ruined by this latest of events. By the time he had finished his forage salad, and bundled himself up in the tall grass above the riverbank's outcrop, Claire had finally ceased her grieving.

Looking over to where Isaac slept by the riverbank, Colin spied a bulky blue figure nearby; half sunk in the shallows, half draped over the muddy shore.

Claire was sleeping noise to toe with Isaac, a scant foot of empty space separating their massive figures.

Cuddling into an armful of vegetation, Colin closed his eyes with a sigh. Ending the day with one last bittersweet thought, the wigglytuff forfeited to sleep at last.

 _...Wish I had someone to sleep with._ Colin grumbled to himself.


	5. Chapter V: No Time to Say Hello, Goodbye

_._

 _Another day, another dollar. Another irreplaceable chunk out of a finite and rapidly passing lifetime._

 _-Bill Waterson_

 **(-)**

 **S**

 **(-) Fused Duality (-)**

 **S**

 **(-)**

 _A Pokemon Fanfic_

 **-v-**

By Vile M.F. Slanders

 **-v-**

 **Chapter V: No Time to Say Hello, Goodbye**

…

It always started with a line.

Every story pivoted on that same crucial preamble.

That line needed to convey a sentiment, an ideal, a question…

That line needed to be relevant, if the story was to have any hope of continuation.

Colin understood the significance of that preamble. He recognized the necessity of it.

It was easy to paint a graphic portrayal of emotion and conflict; easy to forge vivid conversations between personas; easy to animate fantasy with the experiences of reality.

But if Colin couldn't establish that most weighty of preambles, no amount of clever dialogue or vibrant exchanges could keep a story alive.

The author needed to feel invested in their world, and if the introduction of that world struck the author as weak…

...Then that world would die, as creative darwinism abandoned its feeble constructs as failures; forever seeking the formula to realize that tantalizing and unobtainable perfect design.

But Colin had only recently begun to realize how foolish pursuing that perfect design was.

Perfection was an abstraction; a subjective standard; a vaunted laurel of individualized complacency. Perfection was not a destination to be achieved; it was a journey, a voyage traipsed through countless failures forged from uncertain dreams.

Perfection was not a light at the end of a dark tunnel.

Perfection was the dark tunnel, but blind eyes seeking rapture would only ever look to the misleading light.

The perfect preamble.

The line that began a story, destined to be finished.

Colin had never written that one line. He didn't even know what that line would look like, should it ever depart from his pen.

But Colin had a feeling that he'd recognize such a line, when it finally flowed from his hand.

The perfect line that introduced a story; the preamble that created a world.

The line that gave life to, and bred compassion for, a concept maintained by conscious thought alone.

The line that was a story, in and of itself.

…

The chirping roused him. Birds were singing in the early throes of the morning's return, the new sun's light still young upon the horizon.

The rapids churned out a perpetual white noise, lulling Colin back to sleep.

He'd almost forgotten that he wasn't home. The doze still prevented him from developing a full recollection, but a subconscious dread nagged at him, troubling Colin from his desired rest.

The smell of wet earth and flowering grass filled his nose, and a tingling itch bade Colin to rub his face.

That was all it took. Enough sensation to rekindle his awareness.

Try as he might to deny it, Colin was awake now.

...And now he had no choice but to face this uncertain day.

Pulling himself from his grassy den with a sigh, Colin looked over to the riverside.

Isaac and Claire hadn't moved at all during the night. Isaac still stood in his original position at the shore, while Claire remained splayed between the shallows and the bank. A foam line had formed on Claire's upstream side, spreading a tower of froth far across the still shallows.

"You guys alive?" Colin yawned, as he approached the two sleeping giants.

Isaac said nothing, though he occasionally swelled with a long draw of breath. Claire, on the other hand, responded to Colin's call by shifting in her sleep.

"You feeling better Claire?" Colin asked softly, as the Lapras lifted her dozing head from the sand.

"...No." Claire mumbled upon eying Colin, before placing her chin back onto the ground.

"Sun just came up. You might want to sunbathe for a bit. You might be… ectothermic, so you're probably gonna need to warm yourself up some." Colin swallowed his tongue. No sooner had he mentioned the need to sunbathe then it was that Claire's eyes clamped tightly closed.

"I know it's rough, dealing with this Claire, but… If you don't take care of yourself, you're gonna get sick." Colin murmured to the reluctant lapras. Claire's long throat rolled with a swallow, and the sluggish giant pulled herself free of the river's foam.

Inching her way across the the coarse mountain sand, Claire adjusted her altitude and angle for optimal early morning sun basking.

Seemingly too tired to even speak, Claire laid down on the stone outcrop, and passed out within seconds of immobility.

"Isaac?" Though still worried for Claire, Colin focused his attention on the aggron now.

Yet Isaac made no sound or motion to indicate that he'd even heard Colin's voice.

"You need to wake up, dude. The sun won't be hitting this patch of sand for much longer." Colin tapped Isaac's plated leg, but the sheer density of Isaac's armor deadened all sound and reverberation.

 _Hitting concrete makes more noise than this!_ Colin's jaw dropped as he swapped tapping nails for a swatting palm.

Apart from the fleshy smack of Colin's padded mitt, no other discernable noise was invoked by his second attempt at waking Isaac.

"...How do you even _move_ underneath all that stuff?" Colin breathed out in awe.

Isaac didn't answer.

"...Dude, are you… alive?" Colin asked the silent aggron nervously.

Still no response.

"...Claire? What do you know about brumation?" Colin asked Claire with worry plain in voice.

Only incoherent mumbling answered Colin from the outcrop.

"...A bit louder?" Colin requested, sidling up the outcrop towards the sunbathing Claire.

"It sucks." Claire grumbled, her eyes still tightly shut.

"...What I wouldn't do for a cup of coffee right now…" A gravelly voice gurgled from the shore, causing Colin to jump out of his skin.

Isaac had finally woken up.

"Are you feeling okay?" Colin rushed back to the shore, but Isaac had already dozed off again, leaving Colin desperate for another response.

"This is bullshit!" Colin cried out, after failing to rouse Isaac.

"Ditto." Claire muttered, reluctantly shifting her bulk to keep pace with the creeping sunlight.

…

"Oh god… batteries almost fully charged." Isaac moaned, raising himself into a bipedal stance in order to evade the stretching shadows.

Claire had recovered from brumation far faster than Isaac, and after having nibbled on last night's leftovers, she had returned to the arduous task of discovering the nuances of her newly nautical nature.

"You're looking a lot better." Colin chewed on a skinned cattail root, swallowing the starchy saliva for his breakfast.

"...It's like coming down from a weed high. The hangover makes you feel absolutely useless and dumb." Isaac grumbled.

"Cottonheaded much?" Colin chortled.

"Extremely. Try stretching or something. Physical activity seems to counteract it." Claire advised from the water.

"...If I don't trip over my own feet when the world starts spinning again…" Isaac grunted, rolling his stiff shoulders and back.

"How can reptiles live like this?" Colin snickered.

"Because they have too. Jesus Christ, I'm almost afraid to move…" Isaac muttered, taking a hesitant step forward.

"Of all the times not to have a camera!" Colin could barely repress his laughter as a bleary-eyed aggron doddered forward on his dragging feet.

"Shut up. Otherwise I'm gonna bury you in mud before bed. See how you like it come morning." A grumpy Isaac gave up walking on two legs, and opted to work his whole body on four instead.

"I feel for you, Claire. I really do feel for you." Isaac moped, as he staggered across the outcrop like a beast.

For some reason, Isaac's latest utterance made Claire laugh.

…

"Okay, so we're headed down the mountain. Any idea of what we're going to do when we get there?" Colin asked, once his reptilian friends had regained full use of their faculties.

No one said anything.

"...You got a plan, right Isaac?" Colin asked, anxiety clear in his enunciation.

"...We need to find out where we are, first and foremost." Isaac began after a moment of brooding.

"And home?" Claire asked, her voice intoning desperation.

"...That's the end goal, but first we have figure out how to ditch these bodies. To do that, we need to figure out how we got here. To figure out how we got here, we'll first need to figure out where here is." Isaac sighed. Claire deflated at the bank, while Colin grew pensive.

"Okay. What are we looking for?" Colin mused aloud.

"A settlement? A signpost? Evidence of a civilization?" Isaac proposed.

"A settlement? Where do you think we are?" Colin asked Isaac.

"No clue, dude. But a hospitable mountain range like this, and not one radio tower or road in sight? Something tells me that this is either a very remote location on earth, or a completely different world." Isaac swallowed.

That got everyone thinking uncomfortable thoughts.

"...Do you think there's people out here?" Colin pondered.

"Good god, I hope not…" Isaac shuddered.

Both Claire and Colin shot him a shocked look.

"...Why wouldn't you want to find people?" Claire asked Isaac.

"...What do people do to pokemon in the canon, Colin?" Isaac looked over to the wigglytuff, his question stated with a rhetorical air.

"...Oh god." Colin swallowed hard, catching on to Isaac's concern.

"You don't think that they'd actually...?" Claire began nervously.

"Let me ask you this, Claire. How many times did Ash ask a pokemon if they wanted to be enslaved in the anime?" Isaac retorted, looking farther down the mountainside at the valley nestled below.

"...It's all fun and games until it's your liberty at stake. I'm never gonna look at a Pokemon cartridge the same way again…" Isaac murmured.

"But that's assuming that this isn't earth! If this is earth-" Colin began, but Isaac shut him down.

"-Then people would probably try to shoot us on contact. When was the last time you heard of a real-life pokemon encounter, Colin? Hell, even if someone did recognize us as pokemon, what would be the rational thing to do in a real-life pokemon encounter?" Isaac asked.

"Run. That, or..." Colin froze up.

"- _Fight._ Exactly." Isaac finished for him.

"But we can talk! We can communicate with them! Meowth was a talking pokemon, and he-" Claire cried out.

"How do you know that we're not speaking pokenese right now? Say that we are speaking english, say that we can make ourselves heard to people. What're the odds of us encountering an english speaking culture?" An agitated Isaac cut Claire off mid sentence.

Utter silence answered him.

"...We find out where we are; figure out if we have to worry about getting trapped in a Pokeball, or worse: _A PC storage box,_ for the rest of our lives; then we figure out a way home." Isaac laid out the plan for them.

"We also need to consider our individual needs. Remember, we're trying to survive out here. Nobody has given us anything on a silver platter, and I think it's best to proceed assuming that no one ever will. Now Claire and I just got our asses kicked by routine dormancy; Claire needs deep water to move; Colin needs several round meals a day; and I'm gonna need to go mining for my own meals sooner or later. These are priority concerns. We cannot make a heading without first accounting for them." Isaac turned back to Colin and Claire with a heavy look in his eyes.

"We're all in this together. I'm not going home if one of you guys aren't. Keep that in mind when the misery hits again, because this is not going to be a picnic. I can guarantee that much." Isaac's voice was dire with a warning, and both Colin and Claire caught the hint.

"...Hey Isaac?" Colin began, his voice trembling.

"What?"

"I know that you hated every second of it, and I know you think it was a waste of time…" Colin paused to take a deep breath and calm himself with it.

"...but right now, I'm really, really, really glad that you went through basic." Colin shuddered slightly with a chuckle.

Isaac, however, shared none of Colin's amusement.

"Yeah…" Isaac began, turning to face the river and looking down into the valley again.

"...I was just thinking the exact same thing."

…

"Alright Claire. You're running out of safe water." Isaac called from the shore.

Claire tensed up. She'd been struggling through the chop for some distance now, but that loud roar up ahead meant that the river was only going to get rougher further on.

This was the part she'd been dreading all morning long.

"Okay. I'm coming in." Claire's voice shook as she adjusted her heading, and steered herself downstream into a tight channel. Isaac and Colin were rushing to meet her there, amplifying Claire's anxiety with their quick advance.

 _It's okay. He's not going to hurt you. You'll be fine. He's doing this for your own good-_

She'd told herself that as a child too, in an effort to ease the dread and confusion.

It had never worked.

So Claire just tried to stop thinking, which wasn't easy, given the sudden spike of her heart rate.

Pushing herself free of the rapids, Claire let herself drift into the shallows, as Isaac and Colin caught up to her.

"How's the water?" Isaac asked, maintaining a respectable distance from the panting lapras.

"...It feels good." Claire shuddered out a response.

"Are you ready?" Colin asked in a soft voice. Claire viciously shook her head.

"Alright. Take your time. There's no rush. Just let us know when you're ready to go." Isaac crouched down on the bank.

Basic psychology. Isaac was trying to calm Claire by giving her control over the event. Unfortunately, Claire was permitted control over everything, except the option to say _no…_

The sun crept ever higher into the sky, while Claire fretted in the shallows. The rationalization process had already begun. It was only skin-to-skin contact. It was only another body against hers. It was perfectly natural, and people did it all the time-

-That last thought wasn't so comforting…

"...We're gonna need to get going sooner or later, Claire." Colin breathed out a condolence.

"I know! I know, just give me-" Claire choked on her own voice. It dawned on her just how terrified she sounded.

 _I'm stalling, and it's only making the anxiety worse…_

The lump in her throat was just a prelude. Next, she'd feel as if her throat was shrinking. Then the air itself would lose all substance, and she'd be breathing in a vacuum. Claire could already feel her gut churning with the throes of nausea. She'd probably be sweating too, but this body didn't have any sweat glands…

"Claire…" Isaac finally spoke up, focusing her swirling vision on him.

 _He's not going to hurt you, he's not going to hurt you, he's not going to-_

"...I'm sorry." Isaac swallowed, as Claire began to hyperventilate.

"Just- Just- getitoverwith..." Claire sealed her eyes shut, and tried not to cry.

Isaac entered the shallows as slowly as he dared. Crouching in the water beside Claire, he allowed the river to wash over his back and clavicles.

"...Just sidle on, when you're ready to go."

He wasn't going to force himself beneath her.

Pushing herself back into the river's pull, Claire aligned her bearing with Isaac's back, and allowed the river to take care of the rest.

Gently bumping into the cold metal beneath the water, Claire gingerly raise her anterior fin above Isaac's armor, and pulled herself onto his back and shoulders. Rising from the water with an arched spine, Isaac supported Claire's bulk on the root of his tail, before taking her fore flippers in his firm grip, and fastening them above his collars.

Straddling his back and shoulders, feeling ill enough to vomit up what little she'd eaten this morning, Claire allowed herself to be removed from the water and hauled onto dry land.

"Won't be long, okay? I'm sure these rapids aren't too bad." Isaac attempted to comfort Claire with conjecture.

Famous last words.

The river didn't ease up again until it poured over the mountain's fall line and into the valley's fjord.

…

It was midnight when they finally reached the roots of the mountain. The moon was at its zenith, and Isaac was approaching his limit for the day, when Claire was finally returned to the water.

Isaac hit the rocks shortly after having delivered Claire into the fjord. He was too sleepy to stand, too weary to fret over preparations.

Isaac's new ectotherm constitution clearly had its boundaries, and he'd come perilously close to exceeding them by carrying on well after dusk.

But Isaac had insisted on making the valley today. All to spare Claire of having to prolong her harrowing journey into another day.

Colin was concerned, of course. This was all new to him. He wasn't used to seeing his friends in the states that they were. Isaac, nonresponsive from thermal deprivation; Claire, barely coherent for having relived her past trauma.

Between worrying for both Claire and Isaac, it was no surprise that Colin was just as stressed as his friends.

A situation that was made worse by Claire's coping mechanism.

She'd just left them.

Right after Isaac had put her into the fjord, Claire had just swam off without a word.

Leaving Colin with an unconscious Isaac to care for alone.

 _I understand that this is hard on her…_ Colin dabbed water on Isaac's beak, tempting the aggron to drink, but not even drops of water trickling across his snout could prompt a response from Isaac.

 _...But this is ridiculous!_ Colin punched the sand at his knees, as he began to tear up.

 _Could she mope a little closer to shore? Did she have to leave? What if Isaac needs help?!_ Colin looked at the still giant beside him, and bit his lip.

 _This isn't fair!_

Colin grabbed his ears and pulled them down to his cheeks. He was angry. Angry at Claire for ditching them. Angry at Isaac for being stubborn. Angry at this world for existing, and angry at the unfair hand life had dealt them.

Angry at himself for being useless. Angry for giving into anger.

 _I don't know how we're gonna make it… Isaac killing himself, Claire acting like a child, and me… What have I done to help?!_

"Perhaps more than you give yourself credit for?" A voice suggested from the dark.

Colin jumped out his skin, as ice ran down his spine.

"Who's there?!" Colin whirled about, attempting to locate the source of that voice.

"...My, my. No need to be alarmed. I was just passing by, and I couldn't help but hear your thoughts of despair. By the way, what day is it?" The unseen speaker asked.

"What day-?!" Colin scanned the shrubs, before his eyes darted to the fjord.

There was nothing in either location. Nothing to be seen with his eyes.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry! You've only just arrived! How are you to know what day it is… is it Sunday?" The voice carried on.

"...Who are you?" Colin breathed, his nerves no more calmed by the apology.

"By who, do you mean my name, or something else?"

"Where are you?! Come out where I can see you!" Colin hissed.

"Oh dear! Did I leave it on? No wonder why that poor Crobat was so confused! ...What was your name again?" The voice asked.

"Show yourself, or I'll-" Colin froze up, struck dumb by the inanities of his own bravado.

What exactly would he do, should the speaker refuse to reveal themselves?

-What could Colin possibly do if they actually did reveal themselves?

"-Oh yes! I forgot! Sorry about that!"

A woman in white and green appeared not even a meter away from Colin and Isaac, giving Colin ample reason to jump again. Despite the adrenaline coursing through his body, it didn't take Colin more than a second to identify her.

"...You're a gardevoir, aren't you?" Colin warily asked the feminine figure.

"And aren't you just the fluffiest little wigglytuff I've ever seen!" The gardevoir leaned down to pinch Colin's cheek.

"Oh, don't be so frightened! I'm not here to hurt you!" The gardevoir simpered as Colin shied away from her narrow fingers.

There was something peculiar about this creature. Sure, its coloration and figure was easily recognizable as a gardevoir's, but something about its weathered features just seemed to make it look so…

"...You're old…" Colin whispered in shock.

"Where are your manners?! Just because I'm an old bag doesn't mean you have to comment on it!" The wrinkled face of the gardevoir grew taut with a smile and a musical laugh.

"...Are you- Can you- Where is- How is-!?"

"Ah-ah-ah! One thought at a time. Yes, I'm like you. Yes, I suppose I could help you. Where is here? Why here is here, obviously! I don't think here has a name yet, but maybe you should name here? And as for how all of this is possible? I have absolutely no idea! I'm Elsa, by the way! Pleasure to meet you, Colin!" The elderly gardevoir extended a hand to Colin, who reciprocated the familiar gesture more out of shock and habit, than out of a conscious desire to do so.

"...You can read my mind?" Colin asked in a daze.

"Not so much your mind, just what's at the tip of your tongue… on the top of your head? Something you were about to say anyways-? Oh, whatever! I'm Elsa! And you are-?" Elsa extended her hand again, as if Colin hadn't just finished shaking it four seconds prior.

"...Colin." Colin awkwardly introduced himself, shaking the gardevoir's hand yet again.

 _-Is this gardevoir insane?!_

"Colin! What a lovely name! And this handsome brute must be Isaac! I'd shake his hand as well, but there's not much going on in his head right now, if and you get my meaning-" Elsa continued.

 _Maybe not insane, but definitely not all there-_

"I can hear you thinking about me, Colin. Don't worry! I'm used to it! Insight brightens as beauty fades after all! What's done is done! No point moping about your age when you've still got younguns to look after!" Elsa beamed at Colin, her teasing smile growing increasingly warm.

"Now onto the question I'm sure you and your friends want answered; and yes, I know about Claire, I was eavesdropping on you well before I announced myself; forgive me! But I need to know, have you seen a stolid fellow by the name of Jared? Hitmonchan, about half my age- okay, maybe he's more like three-fourths my age, but we were separated when my teleportation went awry and I'm terribly worried about him!" Elsa rambled.

"I- but- who-? What…?" Colin struggled to articulate his confusion.

"Oh dear… I know it's difficult, keeping up with an addled old lady, but I'm looking for my friend: _Jared_. He's been here as long as I have, and you can see the stormcloud following him from a mile away- No, not an _actual_ storm cloud! Jared's just perpetually moody!" Elsa bantered on.

"No, we haven't seen a hitmonchan anywhere. You're the first person we've seen since arriving here yesterday-" Colin began in a shaking voice.

"-Was yesterday Friday, or Saturday? I can't remember the date, it's been so long-" Elsa wistfully interrupted.

"It was Friday! Friday from where we came from at least-"

"Ha! Wade lost the bet! Fat bastard said I couldn't possibly keep an accurate record of the date after twenty years! Well this will teach the old sot not to doubt my memory-!" Elsa giggled.

" _-Twenty years?!"_ Colin cried out in alarm.

"Oh yes! Sorry about letting my thoughts wander, happens a lot anymore. Twenty years. We've been here for twenty years. Jared, Wade, and myself. Why I daresay we were the first to arrive, so-"

"Hold up, hold up! You mean that you and two of your friends ended up here _twenty years ago,_ and you're all still _here?!"_ Colin cried out.

"There were others, but we lost them as time went on. Poor Jordan, that teary-eyed pillock deserved better…" Elsa's smiling face fell for a second, but whatever mournful memory had invoked such a change quickly passed, and Elsa was suddenly beaming at Colin again.

"...They died?" Colin asked, his voice growing faint. Elsa's renewed smile faded once more, and a sad look filled her distant red eyes.

"...One at a time. Most of them did die, tragic as it was. Worse though, were the ones who lost themselves, and went as feral as this place's aboriginal denizens. It hasn't been an easy life, but we've always tried to make the most of it. And I still have both Jared and Wade, and for that I am most grateful." Elsa sighed, as her eyes slid out of focus.

So many questions now raced through Colin's mind. Too many questions to give voice to, too many questions to consider and to assign proper priority. Yet before Colin could even attempt to voice his incoherent thoughts, Elsa silenced him with a raised hand.

"I know you're confused Colin, and I wish that I could tell you everything you want to know, but…" Elsa pursed her lips and swallowed, before resting a sad set of eyes on Colin.

"...I know better than to do that, especially to someone who has only just arrived." Elsa sighed again, and shook her head, her smile worn only to make peace with her memories.

"But I will tell you this much: don't fear for Claire or Isaac. They have their own burdens to bear, and your concern would only make those burdens all the more heavy for them. Have faith in your friends, and be strong for yourself. That's the only way you'll all keep each other together." Elsa smiled anew, and cupped a motherly hand below Colin's chin.

"...And as for that help I promised earlier? Here's a little gift from me to you. Use it wisely, otherwise you may find yourself in my shoes- Dear lord, I haven't worn shoes for decades! Is that idiom even relevant anymore?! Oh yes-! I almost forgot! Help! That's right!" Elsa punctuated her recollection by planting a gentle kiss upon Colin's brow.

"There you are! I'm sure you'll find it to be extremely useful! Word to the wise though, don't try going someplace you haven't been to before! It never works, and you'll probably just end up getting lost somewhere you've already been! Now I must be going, Jared is probably _brooding_ over my absence, bless him! Ta-ta! I'm sure we'll meet again!" Elsa waved animatedly at Colin, as her body began to glow pink.

"Wait-! What did you mean-?!" Colin began, but before he could finish speaking, Elsa disappeared with a white flash. Blinking the parading multicolored spots out of his eyes, Colin shook himself bodily, as though to loosen the jumble of thoughts bouncing around in his head.

Attempting to speak coherently resulted in only garbled nonsense, and in the end, Colin elected to voice an explication that summarized his current thought process in the most literal sense possible.

" _What the hell was that?!"_


End file.
